Mean Girls

Today I went to lunch with a bunch of girl friends and of course a TON of little kiddos. We picked a practical option, McDonalds (this was a new McDonalds, thankfully the toys weren't completely throwing me into my germa-phobe paranoia.)

We got talking about how kids can be so mean. We talked about how it is weird being the mom now and worrying if your child will get teased or how it feels when they come home from school and tell you about being teased.

Do you remember ever seeing anyone get thrown in the garbage can? I do. I was in fifth grade, wearing my guess jeans (they were teal) and I was doing banana flips off the monkey bars.  This boy named Buddy took another boy and threw him in the garbage can. I walked over there and told him if he ever did that again I would make sure that he got beat up by someone.  Okay, so maybe it would have been better to just go tell the teachers aid on the playground... but they didn't do anything so of course it was more effective to make sure he knew my possy would be after him.

That brought me to my next, not so fond memory.  Being a part of the mean girls clique. Everyone wanted to be in our circle.  We played tether ball every day during recess, during lunch, and after school.  That might not sound very cool (I mean really a ball on a string that goes around a pole???) but it was cool, it was very cool.  We were all the little girls who everyone thought had money. My family we really didn't, my mom was really nice and got me the clothes I had been asking for because all my friends had them (pretty cool of you mom, although I am sorry that I was 10 and selfish!)

Middle school and Junior High hit and I remember my friends were so mean.  I know guilty by association right? On occasion, we would invite one of our friends over to the house.  We would begin talking mean about another friend and the friend invited over would naturally join in, because gossiping was just part of the drama.  The friend who had invited the other friend would say really mean things and so the one invited over would make sure she was keeping up with what she didn't like or what she was annoyed by.  Well, the girl they were talking about would come out of the closet or come out from under the bed and say, "Now I know what you really think of me."  MEAN GIRLS!  Seriously what was that? Why was I ever even willing to be in the room without giving the one invited the clear signal that someone was under the bed or in the closet. Really, after one time, don't you think that you would learn to not ever say anything mean about anyone, but they never did.  Thankfully I could learn the lessons by watching, what a silly follower I was back then!  It is never really worth while to talk badly of another, because in the end I have just as many little bloopers and flaws as the next gal.  Sometimes I catch myself being critical and then I remember I was part of the mean girls once and really didn't like it at all.  So I guess in the end it helped me realize I liked being a nice girl and I try really hard to be consistent with that.

If you are reading this, you can judge me, but remember people change and learn and grow. Once you remember that maybe you can just thank me for being honest about what it was like to be a kid trying to find myself!